Dobbin St Rooftop | 64 Dobbin St | subscribe to ThisPlace emails for schedule
Event popup ThisPlace regularly hosts drink n draws all over North Brooklyn. The next one is coming up on June 26 at Dobbin St, from 630-9pm. Tickets are $25 and include rosé, but you should bring your own drawing supplies. Since this is happening at sunset, you can bet the light will be magical so you might want to bring colored pencils or pastels. Join the ThisPlace mailing list to stay up-to-date on future drink n draws and other fun events.

Greenpoint Figure Drawing. Photo: Julia Moak

Greenpoint Figure Drawing | 67 West St #303 (Big Object Studio) | Fridays at 7pm
Greenpoint Figure Drawing is a Meetup group that hosts weekly drink n draws, for $15. “In each 3-hr session, we will draw from a live model, beginning with quick poses to warm up, and then gradually extend the pose length to a final 1 hour pose to finish the evening.” The sessions are moderated by two stop motion visual artists. BYOB and BYO art supplies. *Note, the next meetup is Friday June 23rd; there won’t be a drink n draw tonight.Continue reading →

Hallelujah! Something’s happening in the old Cassette space, making Franklin Street a little less sparse. The past several weeks we’ve seen Brooklyn Label paper up their windows, Mr. Souvlaki bit the dust, Mrs. Kim’s is “renovating”, and Jimmy’s packed up before year’s end. Gowanus’s Threes Brewing will be opening a temporary bar and beer shop at 113 Franklin Street (at Kent) starting today, and it will run at least through the end of the month and possibly longer. Continue reading →

Walking down Grand Street past Bushwick Avenue amidst trucking supply shops and duct work fabricators, I almost missed Interboro Spirits and Ale’s new tasting room (942 Grand St.), which just opened a few weeks ago. It’s a raw, industrial space—formerly a manufacturer of naval anchors, and later a wood flooring workshop—that somehow feels warm and inviting, like a little oasis in the midst of all the warehouses. And the approachable vibe is thanks to the friendly folks at the helm.

As budding journalists, something that we are finding out at a very rapid rate is that there is really a fine line that you have to walk when going to a beer event. This past weekend we were given the privilege of covering the annual Brooklyn Pour Craft Beer Fest, presented in its 6th year by the Village Voice. In similar fashion to the last article we wrote for our ever tolerant friends at Greenpointers, we underestimated the inherent conflict that would arise from trying to maintain our journalistic integrity while also sampling every beer vendor in attendance. So before we continue to how deep we got into the fest, let’s give you some raw stats about the event.

Brooklyn Pour focuses on highlighting small craft breweries and unique imported beers. All told, there were 58 different breweries in attendance from all over the country serving up over 125 craft brews. There seemed to be a focus on the Northeast, the reason for which is because we make the best beer (Step off, centuries old breweries from Germany.)

Boring info out of the way, let’s get to the breakdown of our experience at the expo. What follows is a timeline of our decent into trying to take on the biggest craft beer festival in the Northeast, and failing miserably. Continue reading →

Many Greenpoint beer afficianados these days do not drink cans or bottles of beer. In places like Beer Street (413 Graham Avenue), One Stop Beer Shop (134 Kingsland Avenue) and Brouwerij Lane (78 Greenpoint Avenue), drinkers quaff growlers of beer, but the growler is nothing new in Greenpoint. It has a long local history.

There is no clear idea of where the term growler comes from. A growler has been defined as:

Growler: A pitcher or other vessel for beer, 1885, American English, of uncertain origin; apparently an agent noun from growl (v.)

In early days the expression “work the growler” meant go on a spree. An article from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in the 1880s describing the gang-infested Greenpoint area between Ash and Eagle Streets known as Dangertown (gotta love the name) reported that the local gangs robbed people to get money for the sole purpose of “working the growler.” Continue reading →

It’s that lovely time of year when it stops being deathmetal-hot, but it’s still warm enough to enjoy a cold glass of rose or white wine and some delicious oysters as a pre-dinner aperitif. Here’s where we found the best oyster happy hours in Greenpoint! Shuck ’em up! Continue reading →

Take it from us: there really is no way to prepare your body for the consumption of alcohol at ten o’clock in the morning. No amount of crack-of-dawn jogging, smoothie making or transcendent meditation will make it any easier to knock back even one sip of a strong brew before your breakfast has begun to digest. We don’t know how we didn’t expect this, showing up to photograph the first-ever canning run at Greenpoint Beer and Ale Co. The process, led by Iron Heart Canning was mind blowing enough even without the pre-lunch intoxication.

Far from the beginning of this brewery’s story, this canning is but an exciting new chapter in their long history making and importing wonderful beer. Owner Ed Raven has been in the business of great suds since the 1980s. Not long after getting his start with the Brooklyn Brewery, he began his own importing company, RavenBrands, and opened the Brouwerij Lane beer shop on Greenpoint Avenue in the early 2000s. After Raven opened Greenpoint Beer and Ale Co. in 2014, the beer shop began to serve as a pseudo-training ground for young hopefuls who want to work at the brewery–honing their palettes and familiarizing themselves with beers from all over the world. Continue reading →